Instrumenting with telemetry

Path: Development > Programming in the AL language > Instrumenting with telemetry · tier official · system platform · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section covers how an app or extension publisher gets monitoring data from production. It starts with an introduction to developing telemetry into an application, then setup of the connection to Azure Application Insights, then the ways to emit your own signals. It also covers the obsolete Event Log approach and the telemetry the platform already emits for apps and extensions.

Key points

• Setting up telemetry in an extension uses applicationInsightsConnectionString or applicationInsightsKey in the app configuration; the page references runtime version 7.2.
• Custom events for Application Insights are emitted with the LogMessage method, which supports verbosity levels (Critical, Error, Warning, Normal, Verbose), DataClassification and TelemetryScope (extensionpublisher, all).
• Default dimensions are included in CustomDimensions for custom trace events.
• Feature telemetry uses the FeatureTelemetry codeunit from the Telemetry AL module: LogUsage, LogError and LogUptake.
• Uptake states are Discovered, Set up, Used and Undiscovered. The module also offers a Telemetry Logger interface, custom dimensions, and filtering and feature comparison through common telemetry dimensions.
• The SENDTRACETAG method is obsolete. It writes custom events to the server Event Log, which you can view in Event Viewer. The page references 2020 release wave 2 (v17).
• The platform already logs telemetry for apps and extensions: page interactions, REST API calls, report rendering, error dialogs and resource consumption.
• A reference documentation subtopic with 2 pages is also part of this section.

Subtopics

• Reference documentation (telemetry) (2 pages)

More Learn pages

• Creating custom telemetry events for Azure Application Insights: This article describes how to add code to application objects that enables you to log telemetry.
• Creating custom telemetry events for the Event Log: This topic describes how to add code to application objects that enables you to gather telemetry.
• Data logged to app/extension telemetry: Describes what data is sent to Azure Application Insights for app/extensions.
• Developing telemetry into your Business Central application: This article describes how to add code to application objects that enables you to gather telemetry.
• Feature telemetry: Learn about the telemetry that you can emit from features in Business Central.
• Setting up telemetry in an app/extension: Describes how to configure an extension to send telemetry data to Azure Application Insights.

Videos, posts and code changes

Linked by a Haiku matcher with a grounding quote from the item’s summary (link/topics.ts); machine-generated.

• #2229 Surface empty BCPT results as a warning instead of silent success (code change): “GetBcptSummaryMD now returns a message that appears in the GitHub step summary”
• #2379 Avoid CI/CD runs for template SHA-only system updates (code change): “Checks if files were actually updated or removed before persisting a new template SHA”
• #2392 AL-Go Telemetry Enhancements: repository fork and hosting information (code change): “AL-Go telemetry now captures whether a repository is a fork and its GitHub hosting type”
• #2395 Prevent workflow telemetry failures from failing the workflow (code change): “WorkflowPostProcess telemetry failures no longer cause the entire workflow to fail”
• #10897 BC IQ - Update data sensitivities for policy history (code change): “Data sensitivities are updated to reflect recent changes to Business Skill”
• Handling Business Central Telemetry like a boss: iFacto Telemetry – Pt. 3 (community post): “extends Business Central’s built-in telemetry capabilities by adding custom events”
• What’s New: Telemetry (2023 release wave 2) (video): “Long running AL telemetry - total and exclusive time; Long running AL SQL statistics”
• What’s Cooking in Business Central: Financial Reporting Enhancements (part 2): Telemetry (video): “telemetry; financial reporting; application insights; row definitions”
• Store Business Central Telemetry in Azure Application Insights (video): “Store Business Central Telemetry in Azure Application Insights workspace configuration”
• I Built an AI That Turns Business Central Telemetry Into GitHub Issues (Automatically) (video): “Automated BC telemetry triage with Azure Logic App and AI; KQL query for database lock timeouts”
• What’s New: Server and Database - A Faster Runtime (2023 release wave 2) (video): “Exclusive Time Telemetry; Session Creation Performance Improvement”
• Enable Cost Control Strategies for Business Central Telemetry (video): “telemetry; cost control; daily cap; application insights”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.